


Things that are not

by Anonymous



Series: Dear [2]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Childhood Friends, Combeferre & Enjolras Platonic Life Partners, Introspection, Kissing, Logic and Philosophy Week, M/M, Queerplatonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-18 06:04:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12382395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Combeferre figures out himself and his relationship with Enjolras.





	Things that are not

Enjolras does not kiss.  
He leads. In everything he does, his direction is forward. Even with his lips connected to another’s or his hands holding onto the sleeves of Combeferre’s shirt.

It’s not as they tell it in books, Combeferre thinks, it’s different in a way that dances on the edge of his mind, taunting him to chase after but always out of reach. He senses it but he cannot define it, he cannot make the words fit, he cannot make them logical, or coherent.

It is a kiss, yes. Their lips touch and their tongues dance, their hands wander, tangle, cradle. Every kiss follows the same principle and yet—

Enjolras pushes, and takes, but never too far, never too much. He takes as much as Combeferre gives him, takes every shift to the last possible fraction of an inch, skillfully balancing the line of barely enough and almost too much.

Fingertips brush Combeferre’s cheekbones, softer than the wings of a butterfly and he feels heavy and breathless in comparison. There is something there. Something that is ‘not’ and ‘almost’ and ‘more’. Confusing, fickle, restless.

He cannot grasp them fully, he barely grazes them, those thoughts that are so elusive, definitions that are not more than smoke in his bare hands. His mind obscures itself in their opacity and he feels only a whisper of their substance.

There is light behind his eyelids. And there is this: all encompassing, intense, suffocating. It is different than how they tell you it is. There is no fire in his chest, no flutter in his stomach. It does not feel wrong, but it feels deceitful. Combeferre is falling, slowly, softly, surely; he remembers drowning in his grandmother’s pond and holds more firmly onto Enjolras of fear he might loose himself in the depths of his mind.

Sensations. Feelings. Thoughts.  
They twist and turn and twirl and bleed into one another, they blend into this pool of question marks and blurred lines, a something that expands in both directions while remaining fixed. There is a barrier that he is unable to cross, a door he cannot see, a door he is certain should exists right there on the other side of the part in him that is labelled Friendship, and yet he is staring into the void and no matter how far he goes, the fog does not lift, but only grows more dense.

It is unknown. It is scary.

Combeferre pulls away.

“Are you all right?”, asks Enjolras softly.

“… yes.”

“Have you found your answer?”

“No…”

“Tell me when you’ve found it.”

Combeferre nods in acknowledgement and makes a note in his journal.

Enjolras smiles and leaves.

* * *

Combeferre cannot name that which does not exists, he can merely give frame and shape to its absence. If the subject defies all definitions, then it is only to be defined by what it is not.

They are not friends. They are more.

They are not lovers. They are different.

Kisses are not them, yet kisses are so close to what they could be. But the thought of it feels empty to him. There is indifference where there should have been excitement, there is silence where butterflies should have danced. Combeferre thinks that the answer lies next to him but he cannot see far enough to reach it. Each time he untangles a knot in his racing mind, another appears, bigger, more confusing, more complex.

There is another answer floating right behind his back, lurking, hissing and preying on his crumbling composure. It is dark and heavy, waiting with sharp extended claws to bury in his mind and trap him. It is taunting him, and sometimes when Combeferre feels exhausted and weak, he indulges in this, lets it consume his mind and dictate his thoughts. It is whispering to him and when he is too tired to pretend that he does not hear its words, he allows himself to think that maybe it has been this simple all along, maybe there is no other answer than this.

Or maybe, Combeferre thinks then, it is not needed.

In the loneliness of his room illuminated by the first light of the new day, Combeferre finds his answer.

* * *

“I’m not in love with you,” Combeferre says.

“Yes.”

With Enjolras, it has always been simple.  
They fit, they function. In the end, this is enough.

“I want to be with you.”

“Yes.”

It has always been simple, and it is simple now, as Enjolras takes his hand with a gentle brilliant smile and intertwines their fingers together.

They do not need to explain themselves to the world.

Not at all.


End file.
